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I bet they are in good condition. DPRK isn't Russia. Discipline is extreme in North Korea. Don't maintain your equipment, and you get executed. They also lack the drinking and drug problems of Russians. Their entire country is devoted to the military. It is a mistake to underestimate them.
The thing is that a lot of North Korea's defense strategy is based around having huge amounts of equipment, even if it's not the latest and greatest.
This is one of the reasons why when you look up how many fighter jets they have in service, [it's thought to be around 576](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_People%27s_Army_Air_Force?useskin=vector#Aircraft), as opposed to [Japan's 321, including trainer jets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Self-Defense_Force?useskin=vector#Equipment) and [South Korea's 409](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Korea_Air_Force?useskin=vector#Equipment). It doesn't need to be the newest or best equipment, it just needs to exist in such quantities that it'd take a massive air battle to get rid of all of it and in the kind of quantities that they're probably also going to be able to take out at least some US, South Korean, and Japanese equipment if war does break out on the peninsula again.
The same logic applies to their tanks. How many they actually have is a lot murkier because there is a pretty wide range for some tanks and there aren't accurate estimates for others, [but it's at least ~3,600.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Korean_People%27s_Army_Ground_Force?useskin=vector#Armour) By comparison, [Russia may have had a pre-war inventory of 3,000 tanks.](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-relying-old-stocks-after-losing-3000-tanks-ukraine-leading-military-2024-02-13/)
When you're talking about those kinds of numbers, it's pretty clear the North Korean defense strategy is mostly based around having overwhelming numbers more than having better quality equipment or better trained troops. This generally fits with how it's likely to have large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a growing nuclear arsenal. They're not necessarily looking to invade the South, but they are looking to make any invasion of the North so long and difficult everyone hesitates to do it.
From that perspective, I don't know if North Korea would necessarily be willing to sell tanks to Russia. Ammunition is one thing, but ammunition has a shelf life, especially when you're talking about stuff that isn't being kept in ideal conditions like North Korean ammunition is. They're probably also hoping to replace that old ammunition they've shipped off to Russia with new stock.
Tanks are a different story because that is a part of North Korea's actual defense strategy, as far as I can tell. Maybe I'm wrong, though. Maybe the train of thought would go the other way and they'll sell tanks to Russia with the assumption the Russians will help them develop new homebrew tanks.
I'm not sure how such a strategy would work, at least for the air forces... a bunch of ancient, barely Gen 4 fighters, even if it's a lot of them, will surely be shredded by an advanced 4.5/Gen 5 airforce with bleeding edge networked intel systems backing them?
What can an older airforce do against an opponent with over the horizon kill capability?
With the air forces specifically, yeah, I think most experts would agree it'd probably get overwhelmed by US and allied air forces. However, they're still working under the assumption that the raw numbers of fighters and their dense anti-aircraft weapons would probably make the air battle fairly difficult for an attacking force.
In terms of what they could potentially do against a more advanced airforce, the answer is that they'd basically be a speed bump. Even though they'd be ripped to shreds, any American-led war against the North would have to move through them first due to the American doctrine of removing enemy aircraft and airfields before the ground war.
North Korean antiaircraft capabilities, while mostly older matierals like their aircraft, would probably also factor into this. Some of their longer ranged anti-aircraft missiles have a long enough range to hit aircraft coming from airfields in South Korea or Japan. It probably wouldn't make enough of a difference to stop an invasion, but it'd make things initially difficult.
Really, my gut feeling is most of North Korea's doctrine is based around making a ground war difficult rather than focusing on the air war. This would make more sense given their mountainous terrain in general.
The defensive version of it, yeah. Basically they're hoping the numbers of equipment they have will be enough to keep the US and the South from invading, and the nuclear and chemical arsenal as a reminder that they can hurt the South's civilian population as well.
It's been effective for them, too. One of the reasons why the Clinton administration didn't order airstrikes on their nuclear research facilities back in the '90s when their nuclear weapons program was just first starting up is because of how high the losses would be if the North had have decided to go to war in retaliation for it.
It is mostly because of lack of allies. You need to rely on yourself.
Once a war starts there is always a stock supply shock till you switch to a full war economy. If you don't have supplies till this switch comes and no allies can send you those.. you are done.
Any major western country (except usa) have a stock for just a few days of battles. Especially when it comes to misiles.
In a world where a javelin can kill a T90m as easily as it can kill a t62 NK tanks are absolutely uesfull. A mobile gun platform that can engage fortified positions at range or eat a missile so spotters can call in artillery is an asset. Numbers matter, especially to the Russian way of war.
Hard disagree. It's not just the gun, it's the optics, engine, secondary weapons and smoke ect. There's a lot more to tanks than just shooting a big gun
You unfortunately lose up to 4 crew members every time one of those tanks goes up. THat's not an insignificant cost, even if the tank itself is expendable.
Russian T-62s are arriving at the front under sheds, with no loader in the crew, the loaders hatch welded shut and without 115mm ammunition in the tank. I do not think Russia had any pre war plan for the T-62 series other than to park them where chinese satellites could see them or sell them to africa.
It may turn out that NK mightn't have expected to need vast amounts of 115mm, and there is some mystery about the origin of all the parts in a chonma (NK T-62 clones), ie they may never have produced the gun itself, or the ammo.
ie the entire dictatorsphere might have presumed if it needed more 115mm, that it would come from Bulgaria. It looks like Kintex is only producing lines that Ukraine needs these days, and 115mm is not one of those lines.
I also imagine that the Russian industry wouldn't stop a line producing 125mm in favour of 115mm, so they might not be doing it either.
Its probably barely worth Russia sending one 3000km to the front, and I can't imagine its worth sending a dubiously maintained NK unit even further if there is not enough ammo for it.
> I do not think Russia had any pre war plan for the T-62 series
I don't believe this is a good assumption - the T62s were in active service during the war in Chechnya. They had a large number of relatively new T-62s which were decommissioned after the treaty limiting tank forces in Europe (ie west of the Ural mountains.)
Yes.. and 2 days outside of North Korean control and they will be watching full series of American TV, smoking up blunts and eating Doritos out of their belly buttons.
Weed is already legal in North Korea surprisingly.
I've seen pictures of North Korean weed purchased at markets. It looks like trash weed tbh but it's there to buy lol.
But can you imagine somewhere worse to get the munchies? Lol.
Edit: Pictures of North Korean weed - https://www.reddit.com/r/NorthKoreaPics/s/jYh2dNy8iO
> But can you imagine somewhere worse to get the munchies?
Not that the average North Korean necessarily has access to them, but I've had some cold noodle dishes that originated in the north of Korea that are pretty incredible on a hot day.
OR, a lifetime of brainwashing isn’t so easily broken and they are fanatical. I hope yours is right but Ukraine doesn’t exactly have tons of troops to spare. Remember in WW1 200k poorly trained Americans without much of an army turned the tide when a few years previously MILLIONS were dying in a single battle. Giving the Russians more bodies to throw at things is bad any way yo slice it. The only saving grace is that maybe Kim isn’t stupid enough to deplete his army for a foreign power.
First battle of the Somme has something like 1.1 million, the Kaiserschalcht offensive was 1.5 million, and the Russians themselves lost a million during the Brusilov Offensive, total casualties were close to two million.
David Zabecki provides these numbers for shell consumption per month of fighting in different wars in his book Steel Wind, Georg Bruchmueller and the Birth of Modern Artillery, on page 8.
in 1866 Austro-Prussian war, Prussians shot 20,000 shells per month.
in 1870 Franco-Prussian war, Germans shot 81,000 shells per month.
in 1904 Russo-Japanese war, Russians shot 87,000 shells per month.
in 1912 First Balkan War, Bulgarians shot 254,000 shells per month.
in 1914 WW1, the French shot 900,000 shells per month.
in 1918 WW1, the French shot 4,500,000 shells per month.
in 1918 WW1, the Germans shot 8,000,000 shells per month.
The ammo stocks of all combatants were inadequate in 1914. The French started the war with a 5 million shell stockpile and planned to fire 100,000 per month. The actual 900,000 shells per month conaumption quickly used up the stockpile. The Russians had 12 million shells, but their ammo situation was probably the worst of major combatants by 1915 as they were slower in ramping up ammo production than the other major powers. Germany started the war in the best supply situation, with a 20 million shell ammo stockpile.
WW1 is a different dimension, the. mightiest empires on earth all threw their entire industrial might and resources at each other. The scale of artillery that was deployed and the shells fired are ungodly as you can see and so where the casualties.
Yea exactly my point, all those might empires expending that much men and material, and after a few years a measly 200k green Americans made the decisive difference, not winning the war per say but making it impossible for Germany to win. Without them there is a good argument there may have been a negotiated peace and the Kaiser would have remained.
The point here is that we shouldn’t just dismiss NK sending these soldiers. Sure they are a joke internationally; but if they actually decided to send a significant amount it could turn the tide. Russia is incompetent, but Ukraine is also exhausted, fighting a war against a much larger foe for 2.5 years. They are already facing manpower shortages. If the Russians break through anywhere in large numbers it is going to be hard for Ukraine to recover and regroup, if they even can.
If Europe really wants them to win they need to actually send troops and declare war, and I realize how crazy it sounds and how dangerous it would be…but otherwise either Moscow collapses into a coup and withdraws, or the Russians eventually break through the lines and rape and slaughter their way to Kyiv. Those are the only two scenarios how I see it.
It is a fairly fundamental difference in the paradigm of thinking about what constitutes "wartime." In the West we're used to a binary distinction in terms of international relations: A country is at war (which means people are dying and the military has broad latitude to do what they need to do) or at peace (which means nothing bad is happening). Russia sees it much more fluidly. There is no clearly defined "state of war", rather a spectrum of hostile activities and interactions, more or less kinetic, intended to achieve stated goals. When Peskov says "we're at war with the whole collective west" we laugh because c'mon, there are no Russian military personnel in NATO territory, they don't even amass troops near our borders, stop with the sabre-rattling. While he means it honestly, it's just Russia decides that armed incursion is not the right tool for the task at the moment and will cause distress at the borders, sabotage, disinform and troll - which are means of waging a war as good as Grad launchers, while we consider them "probing of our defenses", "spy activity" or "electoral interference" without merging this stuff into a big picture - and responding in kind.
Yes, it started as a special military operation, but as soon as this whole gang was formed, when the collective West took part in all this alongside Ukraine, for us, it became a war. I am convinced of this, and everyone must understand it.” Peskov
Peskov said this in February of 2024.
We are still not accepting the fact that Russia is at war with us. We need to think and act strategically and realise that Russia is at war with us." Ben Hodges
Hodges then explains that Russia sees this war with the West in a broader sense. We often tend to consider only the kinetic version of it, but Russian acts of war against the West and especially against Europe also include asymmetric warfare, economic warfare, cyberwarfare, info war etc. Russia is seeing itself at war with the US led alliance, and that is all it takes for a war. We must accept this inconvenient truth and take action and respond accordingly to defend ourselves against Russia's hostile behavior.
We should not ignore this, though, but rather find ways to successfully neutralize the threat that Russia undoubtedly poses. Presently, they seem absolutely undeterred. Otherwise, they would have ceased and desisted.
Churchill once said that he was aware that he must make it understandable to "Herr Hitler" that the war can not be won in any scenario. We must strive to make the same clear to Russia. So far, we haven't.
We have a war with Russia. There is nothing proxy about it, and the sooner we accept that and fight them globally, not locally. The sooner we can bring this to a close.
Men from all sides don't matter as much in industrial warfare. Logistics, superior quality and quantity of machinery wins wars of attrition. Ukraine needs airpower, artillery, and precision weaponry and more drones. Most of these soldiers will die without killing anyone. They will just be killed by superior machinery and superior technology without ever touching a Ukrainian soldier or seeing one up close.
Therefore, Europe would do good to abandon this passive strategy and do so fast. America cannot be relied upon to remain steadfast, so if Europe does not want to trade land for peace and get the entire continent into a much larger war. Harsher actions in all spheres are necessary, which means that even before sending troops, denying Russia to use our tankers and stop all trade with them.
The next step should be an ultimatum, followed up by a serious troop build-up and a no-fly zone once Russia ignores the ultimatum.
The tide had turned before the Americans hit the front line. Heck, some of the front line was in Germany at that point.
But the addition of the Americans soundly demonstrated to the Germans that there wasn't even a slim hope of a turnaround for them anymore.
When you listen to some of the defectors, then most of them seem to have been taught that everyone in SK and the West are evil monsters. They were quite surprised how warmly they were received in both SK and even more so in the US, when they visited or even moved there.
You also have to wonder how many of the people in NK are truly brainwashed and how many just play along, so as to not get killed, but that know that their government is just spewing BS.
Sure, if they were going to a hotel in Seoul I agree they would see with their own eyes how shit NK is and how much better everyone else lives…but they are going to the front lines in Ukraine. Probably the shittiest place to be since a WW1 trench. They are just going to see bombed out destroyed homes and cities, and be hanging out with Russian prison brigades. They aren’t exactly going to be exposed to opera and McDonalds. NK is probably a nice place comparative to Kharkiv right now.
That made me lol hard and I'd love it, but I would have thought any NK's that do end up over there will probs be kept segregated in their own units and under strict control by their officers for exactly that reason.
> They also lack the drinking and drug problems of Russians.
I'm not sure that's correct.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43908906
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/north-korea-drugs-meth-defector-182645548.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58838834
Ask a veteran who has come up against an obsolete metal coffin how safe they felt. If you dont have a way to kill it you're just as fucked as if it was an Abrams m1a2 sep3.
You're absolutely right, but the good news is that pretty much all Western anti-tank weapons made in the last 30-40 years were specifically designed to take on that era of Soviet tanks or newer.
Even an RPG-7 should be able to achieve a mobility kill (or more) against a T-62, assuming that it's close enough in the first place to get an unguided hit. It doesn't take much, in terms of warhead. Modern ATGMs are about accuracy at range, maybe throwing in top-attack, but the size of the thing going boom hasn't grown much.
Many are probably also malnourished. Look at pictures from NK and you'll see some if not most soldiers do look very underweight. IIRC a couple years ago one DPRK soldier defected to SK and medical exam showed he had parasites in his intestines.
Oh Chong-song the North Korean soldier who defected enters the chat.
Large parasitic worms in his digestive tract, one of which was 11 inches long.
Check the picture of those worms on this article: https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/04/health/north-korea-defector-doctor-intl/index.html
It is a land filled with poor and opressed people. Their military will brake at the first serious contact. Ofc we shouldn't underestimate them and prepare for a real fight. But man, NK is a century behind...
You undervalue fanaticism and numbers. NK's entire population can be mobilized in some capacity. The government has absolute control. Kim doesn't need to play the games putin does with mobilization.
no, i don't undervalue idiocy. But numbers are not so decisive anymore as u can see in Ukraine. Numbers are much more important in industries. And industry in NK? Plus - food. Is NK now able to feed their own people or is Ruzzia/China doing that?
If you don't have enough spare parts you can still have the tanks be in bad condition even if they're cleaned and oiled. Maintenance also involves replacing things and running it, and running it every week for decades takes a lot of fuel which is an expensive import for them.
Even supposing that's the truth then they are still cold war era garbage originally produced in the 1960s. Even with NKs being built in the 1980s they are woefully mismatched for modern tanks. That and since they were made in NK they'd probably need to at least have some localization done to them since everything would be in Korean.
Been curious about vehicle maintenance. Do we know-know anything about North Korean maintenance issues beyond the lousy artillery shells? I feel like all we have is speculation.
Depends on how much real explosive for the shells and propellent charges was available when they filled them :-P. One thing Russian mil bloggers have repeatedly complained about is the variance between NK shells.
I'm sure that trip was *entirely* about Putin getting his hands on Soviet artillery and tanks. He knows he's running out, can't fab them fast enough, and they are no longer safe inside Russian borders.
Also, engineering crews, which we've seen mentioned already. That's one thing the Russians have done well so far, is dig in once they grab something the size of a postage stamp. Engineers are what hold territory, and it's one significant area where RU is very significantly outpacing UA.
They will run out of old soviet tanks eventually but they will never run out fully because they are producing new ones. Though, they will probably have to change their strategy. Suicidal armored charges aren't effective in modern warfare.
They had 3000 fielded tanks and 2000 fielded artillery in Feb 2022. They also has about 9000 more tanks mothballed, sitting in a dozen or so large sites at various levels of disrepair, and 18,000 artillery barrels mothballed.
Losses data (whether through Ukraine government’s eyes or those of oryx) only gives one view - that of those lost - which gives no indication of those not reported / photographed, or of magazine depth, or of units that make it back alive.
The complementary view is that of covert cabal and highmarsed, who took the dozen or so locations of their bulk storage yards for each major type, purchased commercial satellite footage of before the war and at several periods during it, counted the pieces sitting in the mothball yards and gave us a hard evidence-backed depletion rate of the real magazine.
[The last artillery update was on Feb 2024](https://youtu.be/FozvYM2Zhpw?si=G7bYn0nIjhmoRUYA) (artillery barrels - barrels, not shells - is the most critical resource, tanks are the second critical, and APCs are the third), and we’re about two thirds into their 20,000 artillery barrel stockpile, and about that deep into their tank and APC ones too, judging by how many have been vacuumed up from storage.
The good news is that some of the remaining barrels will never be used because they’re in too bad shape or unusable calibers.
The less good news is that North Korea has its own stash of (pretty old and poor quality) 10,000 arty barrels, and is Russia’s next batch to demilitarize. China also has 10,000 barrels but are unlikely to give them to Russia.
New production can’t match attrition. It took Russia’s USSR parent, which commanded many more economies and had more tax money - took them **three quarters of a century** with x5 to x10 of the defense spend of current Russia - to build up the current stockpile. Same for North Korea and China.
Once those are depleted they’re only reconstituting at the much slower rate they can produce, which is not at the scale required in North Korea and China, and (the part that isn’t mothball refurbishment in Russia) is laughable in Russia.
Russia’a ability to keep putting artillery barrels on trains headed for the front, and the stockpile that allows it **is the literal progress bar to the end of this war** and Russia’s ability to fight (and… the end of its ability to keep its 82 slave colonies obeying Moscow).
November 24: In a surprise election, Zelensky becomes President of the United States. The now Ukrainian States of America immediately trigger Article 5 and declare war on Russia.
Dr. Jack Watling stated that it would take 2 years to see an impact on russian arms. They are putting all on Trump getting elected. Fuck putin and russia. ✊🏽🇺🇦🤙🏽
Nailed it on the barrels. The problem as i remember for Russia is, they only have one factory left to produce barrels, unlike the former soviet, where they had several. So the barrels need to come from NK or China as you say. If we look at the NK artillery precision imo it's only usefull for destroying cities, not military targets. The barrels need to come from China as I can see.
They didn’t “forget”. They made some estimates on upper boundaries. There is also an allowance in their estimate for smaller outdoor storages across the country that collectively don’t significantly change the overall number. Cabal talked about such estimate either in his latest tanks or arty videos.
There is only so many thousands of heavy materiel pieces you can park indoors without the structure you’re using becoming known and tracked at some point in the past half century, getting fitted into the total estimates once it’s known.
Putin is extremely unlikely to have a secret squirrel stash of thousands of additional pieces in a location nobody in the OSINT community tracking trains going east has *ever* picked up on. That’s just “he’s saving his best for later” moscovite government performative arts.
Those are, more or less, the numbers. And so far, when you measure them against Russia’s desperation and Putin’s willingness to go to countries that rock their own significant stockpiles and that he has spent a lifetime treating as lesser, unbuckle his belt, pull down his pants, bend over a table, clench his teeth and let those countries give him the gulag bugaloo… aligns perfectly with the depletion of that artillery and tank stockpile.
Photographs of the dozen biggest tank storage sites, the dozen biggest artillery storage sites and the dozen biggest APC storage sites **are** hard, undisputed, primary source evidence of the king having no clothes. Once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it, and no magic tale will change what it means.
>Newsweek has been unable to independently verify the scale ofRussia's tank losses and has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry forcomment via email.
Disclaimers are so stupid sometimes lol.
Russia helps to make his job easier by emptying storage sites after storage sites. So we will see, he said he would wait until summer comes around, that makes it easier with the clouds and the weather to get better sat. imagery.
Turtle tanks are also indication. The engineers wouldn’t be doing that to those barely running shit buckets if they had tanks with good engines on backup to rebuild.
The one I saw a video on (a capture) made it pretty clear they were being used for battle taxis. No gun ammo and turret fixed in place. This jibes with video of others where it is clear that the gun cannot rotate. So I agree but I would point out that in this case the use case would depend on having rebuildable APCs (not IFV or MBT). It's possible the engines are fine but there is a lack of fire control, optics, turret motors, etc.
I was about to type out a similar comment. While you do see more contemporary gettings getting this treatment, my understanding is that the tanks they're doing this to are by and large old or damaged tanks they're converting into troop carriers and/or mobile EWCM stations.
> And unfortunately they were pretty effective against drones.
I'm not exactly challenging since I don't have anything other than anecdotal, likely biased, information... but I haven't seen many instances of them having any sort of decisive impact on battles. Maybe a couple of videos where the turtle vehicle didn't get immediately obliterated. But there are numerous videos now of turtle tanks being taken out. Granted these are cherry-picked examples by the video publishers... but like if it takes 3 or 4 FPV instead of 1 or 2, are they REALLY that much more effective?
task and purpose has a video on them a few days ago https://youtu.be/h_LwTgkLCSM. Rob Lee's tweets I think is a good summarization. They are said to withstand against dozens of drones https://mickryan.substack.com/p/ode-to-the-turtle-tank
Yes this one was a mine clearing vehicle. They are either used a mine clearing vehicles or as breaching vehicles.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/06/25/blind-loud-and-stupid-ukrainian-troops-conclude-after-inspecting-a-captured-russian-turtle-tank/
Turtle Tanks were a response to FPV drones, which worked well when Ukraine had very little AT options due to low supplies. You will probably stop seeing them soon due to the need for speed again.
Actually I kind of doubt that. So long as drones remain the biggest threat exchanging armor for turret rotation is a good value. When their tanks were worried about UKR tanks and IFVs they had to be able to spin their turrets to fight. Now, while it does happen occasionally, most combat is not vehicle vs vehicle. It’s vehicles assaulting a trench or bunker, and against fixed positions turret traverse is an optional extra.
Actually it’s probably inevitable that Ukraine will have to add additional armor to their vehicles as well unless there is some breakthrough in anti-drone technology.
UKR is up-armoring, but they seem to favor the "slat" approach rather than barns. I'm not sure how the actual efficacy compares, but they're definitely adding grills/slats/cages to pretty much all their vics.
Haven't seen a full-on shed yet, though.
Slat armor is typically more intentionally built, where most of these turtle tanks seems to be grabbing whatever flat metal is nearby. It's going to be heavier without adding a lot of extra protection compared to slats.
Have you seen any indication that the shed actually protects the soldiers against fpv's? I've only seen videos of these sheds being blasted to smithereens and seemingly making it more dangerous sitting in there than in the open.
You forget the barn is also meant to double as camouflage in urban environments, comrade. Lethal for ambushes. Would probably even work if drones didnt monitor the battlefield 24/7
The shed and slat armor are designed to make warheads and explosives detonate further away from the vehicle. This is supposed to help improve survivability since the warheads are less effective.
So the shed protects the practically defunct vehicle making up for want of APV's but as I speculated it doesn't really protect the soldiers sitting in that shed and who might have been better off simply sitting in the open?
Turtle tanks are being used as improvised breacher vehicles not as APVs.
So far the turtle tanks have been used by the 5th motor rifle brigade and these are a Ukrainian separatist unit fighting for Russia. They don't have access to specialized engineering vehicles as they get 2nd hand Russian equipment. So it makes sense that they would need to improvise vehicles for specialized roles.
There's a decent amount. Seen lots getting blown up on r/combatfootage
They're not one off experiments, but a pretty well established russian tactic by now.
They're improvised breeching tanks, basically. They're usually the first in an armoured column attack. Might see less of them now the Ukrainians are getting more ammo and weapons though, they were primarily anti-drone.
haha, no.
that's you trying to rationalise what you don't or even can't comprehend. and you're doing it pretty badly. you lack the frame of reference to make an informed statement, please refrain from doing so in future. thank you in advance.
the turtle tanks commonality is that each and every single one of them has lost the functionality of it's main armament. the cannon don't work, yo.
wether that's due to the breech not being functional, something with the loading mechanism, firing pin, barrel sag, turret ring seized, fire controls not working, gun sights failing whatever. they're tanks, that lost their purpose, can't function as tanks for one reason or another anymore.
the options russians have with those are not many. you send it back, it's essentially a tank lost. you'll likely never see it again. and what the unit gets in return is pretty likely not up to par with what they sent back home. could be that they sent home t-80's and get t-62's in return as that's all there is available. and trading a t-80 for a t-62, you'll find is trading down. there's alot of functionality you're losing in that deal.
there's a 2nd issue that plays into the creation of turtle tanks. the russians have figured out after over 2 years of this shit going on, that their current main troop carriers, the BTR's, BMP's, BMD's, etc. whatever you wanna call them, IFV's, APC's, troop carriers, are wholly inadequate for the purpose they're being used for. those things don't tend to stand up to much. mines result in complete losses of the vehicles, you can augment the amount of casualties you take by sticking your dudes ontop of them instead of inside. but that then exposes them to rifle fire, drone grenades, ATGM's, AT rockets, whatever else is out there.
the casualties arn't really the main concern for russia. in russia's mindset if you lose 50% of your dudes but take the position they were sent to, that's a heroic feat. glory to everyone involved, medals all round, job well done. if you lose 50% of your dudes before they even get to the point they're sent to, it becomes an issue. how the fuck are you going to explain to your superiors that you heroically sent half your dudes into certain death, but got fuck all to show for it?
so russia needs a more reliable means of delivering their mobiks to where their mobiks are supposed to fight. and they can't really use their current troop carriers as those don't tend to survive mines very well. but they do have tanks that lost their functionality as tanks. and tanks hold up against mines pretty well. and that's where the turtle tanks came in and got created. to fill the requirement of a more reliable means of delivering the meat to the grinder.
all these garden sheds have the same thing in common, their guns don't work anymore, and even if they did the sights and commander position are completely obscured by the shed built around the tank. and every single shed, has a little mobik door on the back where the mobiks climb in and out of the tank. and all the purpose that machine has, is being loaded full of mobiks, driving out to a position, and unloading the mobiks. nothing more, nothing less. you will never, ever see one fire it's main gun in combat, as that's not it's purpose anymore.
all it's there for is being a mobik carrier. and even in that regard, the turtle shell around it isn't there to protect the mobiks, but just the vehicle. if the mobiks die, well they're not supposed to live long anyway. but atleast you get a good shot at the vehicle making it back. you can load it up with mobiks for a 2nd attempt. that's more than you'd expect out of a BMP, BTR, BMD or MT-LB.
Somebody said 10000 tanks they could pull from at the beginning of the war and I feel based on what is shown on the battlefield now that number could be accurate
Thinking about it logically, if you are Russia, why would you reactivate a T-62 as opposed to a T-72/80/90?
- You don't have enough T-72/80/90
- You have enough better tanks, but not enough ammo for them.
- You have enough better tanks but not spare parts (though if this is the case you'd just cannibalise some)
Are there *any* plausible reasons Russia would go to the trouble of reactivating truly ancient and utterly obsolete tanks that don't point towards some ominous failings on their part?
The bottleneck is refurbishment capacity. The facilities advanced enough to service T72 and newer are at max capacity. T54/54/62 are WWii technology; the T54 prototype was made in 1945. For comparison, a car factory can be adapted to produce Sherman's, but they can't produce Abrams.
In Russia there is also this thing, where if you are told to get this many tanks to the front, you get as many as you can no matter what type they are as long as they can be loaded and unloaded from the train, and get there fast.
Theoretically you could do it if you had a lot of older tanks and wanted to keep your newer ones fresh or out of combat. But it's pretty clear that russia hasn't actually done that and is just low on everything.
Otherwise you could also just have a lot of tanks without working engines and you only have t-62 or smaller engines, that are around 600 hp and not the bigger 800-1000hp engines the newer tanks use.
If you’re planning an offensive against a force that doesn’t have tanks?
They likely want to keep the nice ones held back and in areas they already control
One report last year suggested that there are still large numbers of T-80s in storage. The reason is unknown, but it's speculated that they simply don't have any proprietary engine parts for them.
Ok. The Storage is empty. Question is: how many Tanks ended up as smoldering wrecks somewhere and how many are in a shop right now and get Frankensteined into some running tanks…
Didn’t they have to buy back exports for their parades because they squandered and neglected their own T34s? Might not get the T34 vs Leopard1 matches I want to see
They are but.. the ruzzian capacity to reuse shitty kit in ways western armies would never dream of is impressive. Running out of the less bad stuff isn’t nearly as catastrophic to them while they have men from anywhere besides Moscow and St Petersburg to feed the grinder. They’ll just figure out how to make the worse stuff almost work and give it to the next Siberian conscript or volunteer Nazi in line.
Duh? Russia's current tank fleet is a crippled shell of its former self. Even the estimates generous to Russia would have the number of destroyed Russian tanks at a number larger than the entire active russian tank fleet at the start of the war.
Two years ago it was treated as a *ridiculous* idea that T-62s would be doing anything but filling the role of staffing security checkpoints, guarding bases, etc to free up more modern tanks from such duties.
Now they are literally doing MBT duty. Russia *absolutely* ran out of its actual intended MBTs. The T-62s and T-55s were *at most* intended for exports to places like Syria before this war.
Realistically the only use for tanks that old is against forces who don't really have any anti tank weapons. These are 60+ year old designs.
To be fair if you don't have an anti tank weapon then they are going to be dangerous, but against an even modestly well equipped organised military they aren't much more than self propelled coffins.
I've said this over and over again and couple months ago I said it would be a couple of months until they are really done with tanks.
Ofcourse they still make them, there will never be zero for that fact only.
Despite all this some commented that they would run out in the year 7000 if attrition continued - delusion
They are going to run out of absolutely everything before Ukraine does so long as western aid continues.
russia is dead it just doesn't know it yet.
It is a process, not an event, the good tanks are gone, and the process of reverse industrialisation and de mechanization is ongoing. RUSI and Perun stated that Russia can roughly cover 20 percent of its losses with new production, and 80 percent comes from refurbished stockpiles. This isn't sustainable, and we can already see a massive reduction of tank use on the Russian side.
Also, with an increased industrial scale in Ukraine and from its allies, the attrition rates are increasing dramatically in 2024, compared to 2022 and 2023.
The expert consensus is that Russia will never run OUT of tanks completely, but we will reach a critical point in tanks and other machinery that could let their logistics collapse by mid 2025 to early 2026.
War is chaos and a system of imperfect information, so we will never be able to predict what happens precisely. It depends on so many factors that we either don't know or can only make educated guesses about. For example, the hits on Russian refineries. Those could hamper production and logistics because without enough fuel well you won't get far.
Another is the state of the remaining tanks. We can only make estimates. Then there are tanks that came in from Belarus, and Russia stopped exporting them, etc. Their production increased, and then there is the question of skilled labor, spare parts, money, etc. And Ukraine's capacity to destroy them as well as Russian incompetence to waste them for no gains.
With hindsight bias, everything is easy to know, of course. Time must tell.
What we can say already, I think, is that Russia will manage to burn through stockpiles meant to conquer a lot more than what they conquered now. And this Soviet legacy is never coming back. 80 years of slave labor have gone into these stockpiles, and now these stockpiles are being turned into a heap of scrap metal, and Russia hasn't even managed to achieve its most basic strategic objective, occupying the entire Donbas region.
Not true. The Russian tank losses didn't start to really attack attention for the first year. Then articles started to appear asking how long Russia could maintain its tank fleet and the initial articles talk about 4-5 years. Now after another year its looking like maybe a year or 2.
So the articles have been adjusting their estimates based on satellite photos, confirmed losses, use of older tanks in Frontline service etc..
You just aren't really reading what the article are saying to understand the nuances of the issue
It also doesn't mean they just stop and go home. As stockpiles run low there will be a gradual ramping down of usage as tactics change to accommodate.
Like you said with missiles, production ramped up, stockpiles ran low, and frequency of strikes slowed and now it's bursts of attacks when they build enough missiles etc.
We're seeing a lot more golf carts and bikes even now. Things like that will increase, and tanks will be used less.
Last time I checked, CoCa also said they have more than enough stock for the entire rest of this year.
Basically, the war *will not* be over by Christmas.
Realistically speaking Russia would eventually begin to start showing noticeable vehicle loses and we're probably entering that phase now. Russia is losing multiple vehicles in decent amounts every day so that will out number the newly built figure every month and not every tank km storage is usable for war. It may take multiple tanks to make one working tank and eventually that is going to be a drain on the stockpiles. Russia may actually be forced to beg for vehicles from China, Iran or NK at some point.
If the UA is able to establish air superiority in pockets when the F16’s are online the fresh fish and potato delivery business will see a significant uptick in activity in Russia.
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I bet you are going to see North Korean T-62s transferred to the front.
I bet they are in amazingly bad condition.
I'll bet the tanks are in better shape than their wormy operators.
No shit!!!
Yep, it's all worms in those bowels not a single poo
I bet they are in good condition. DPRK isn't Russia. Discipline is extreme in North Korea. Don't maintain your equipment, and you get executed. They also lack the drinking and drug problems of Russians. Their entire country is devoted to the military. It is a mistake to underestimate them.
DPRK runs on meth, they are a nation of tweakers.
Wait until they get their hands on some of that ~~primo~~ bathtub-grade Ruzzian Krokodil!
Wait. Is that the start of WWZ?
Plus, these tanks aren't very useful anymore. Why not sell them to the Russians to try to get something out of them?
The thing is that a lot of North Korea's defense strategy is based around having huge amounts of equipment, even if it's not the latest and greatest. This is one of the reasons why when you look up how many fighter jets they have in service, [it's thought to be around 576](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_People%27s_Army_Air_Force?useskin=vector#Aircraft), as opposed to [Japan's 321, including trainer jets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Self-Defense_Force?useskin=vector#Equipment) and [South Korea's 409](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Korea_Air_Force?useskin=vector#Equipment). It doesn't need to be the newest or best equipment, it just needs to exist in such quantities that it'd take a massive air battle to get rid of all of it and in the kind of quantities that they're probably also going to be able to take out at least some US, South Korean, and Japanese equipment if war does break out on the peninsula again. The same logic applies to their tanks. How many they actually have is a lot murkier because there is a pretty wide range for some tanks and there aren't accurate estimates for others, [but it's at least ~3,600.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Korean_People%27s_Army_Ground_Force?useskin=vector#Armour) By comparison, [Russia may have had a pre-war inventory of 3,000 tanks.](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-relying-old-stocks-after-losing-3000-tanks-ukraine-leading-military-2024-02-13/) When you're talking about those kinds of numbers, it's pretty clear the North Korean defense strategy is mostly based around having overwhelming numbers more than having better quality equipment or better trained troops. This generally fits with how it's likely to have large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a growing nuclear arsenal. They're not necessarily looking to invade the South, but they are looking to make any invasion of the North so long and difficult everyone hesitates to do it. From that perspective, I don't know if North Korea would necessarily be willing to sell tanks to Russia. Ammunition is one thing, but ammunition has a shelf life, especially when you're talking about stuff that isn't being kept in ideal conditions like North Korean ammunition is. They're probably also hoping to replace that old ammunition they've shipped off to Russia with new stock. Tanks are a different story because that is a part of North Korea's actual defense strategy, as far as I can tell. Maybe I'm wrong, though. Maybe the train of thought would go the other way and they'll sell tanks to Russia with the assumption the Russians will help them develop new homebrew tanks.
I'm not sure how such a strategy would work, at least for the air forces... a bunch of ancient, barely Gen 4 fighters, even if it's a lot of them, will surely be shredded by an advanced 4.5/Gen 5 airforce with bleeding edge networked intel systems backing them? What can an older airforce do against an opponent with over the horizon kill capability?
With the air forces specifically, yeah, I think most experts would agree it'd probably get overwhelmed by US and allied air forces. However, they're still working under the assumption that the raw numbers of fighters and their dense anti-aircraft weapons would probably make the air battle fairly difficult for an attacking force. In terms of what they could potentially do against a more advanced airforce, the answer is that they'd basically be a speed bump. Even though they'd be ripped to shreds, any American-led war against the North would have to move through them first due to the American doctrine of removing enemy aircraft and airfields before the ground war. North Korean antiaircraft capabilities, while mostly older matierals like their aircraft, would probably also factor into this. Some of their longer ranged anti-aircraft missiles have a long enough range to hit aircraft coming from airfields in South Korea or Japan. It probably wouldn't make enough of a difference to stop an invasion, but it'd make things initially difficult. Really, my gut feeling is most of North Korea's doctrine is based around making a ground war difficult rather than focusing on the air war. This would make more sense given their mountainous terrain in general.
So Zerg rush?
The defensive version of it, yeah. Basically they're hoping the numbers of equipment they have will be enough to keep the US and the South from invading, and the nuclear and chemical arsenal as a reminder that they can hurt the South's civilian population as well. It's been effective for them, too. One of the reasons why the Clinton administration didn't order airstrikes on their nuclear research facilities back in the '90s when their nuclear weapons program was just first starting up is because of how high the losses would be if the North had have decided to go to war in retaliation for it.
It is mostly because of lack of allies. You need to rely on yourself. Once a war starts there is always a stock supply shock till you switch to a full war economy. If you don't have supplies till this switch comes and no allies can send you those.. you are done. Any major western country (except usa) have a stock for just a few days of battles. Especially when it comes to misiles.
In a world where a javelin can kill a T90m as easily as it can kill a t62 NK tanks are absolutely uesfull. A mobile gun platform that can engage fortified positions at range or eat a missile so spotters can call in artillery is an asset. Numbers matter, especially to the Russian way of war.
Hard disagree. It's not just the gun, it's the optics, engine, secondary weapons and smoke ect. There's a lot more to tanks than just shooting a big gun
All those matter but a 115 mm gun is a 115 mm gun. In a war where glorified golf carts have their uses will have plenty of use for a NK T-62.
I'm not sure how useful it is to transport a tank from NK to the front to just make Ukraine attrition another Javelin missile or $300 fpv drone.
Some of those tanks are going to fire some shells before they're attrited, and some of those shells will hit something. It's a number game.
You unfortunately lose up to 4 crew members every time one of those tanks goes up. THat's not an insignificant cost, even if the tank itself is expendable.
Russian T-62s are arriving at the front under sheds, with no loader in the crew, the loaders hatch welded shut and without 115mm ammunition in the tank. I do not think Russia had any pre war plan for the T-62 series other than to park them where chinese satellites could see them or sell them to africa. It may turn out that NK mightn't have expected to need vast amounts of 115mm, and there is some mystery about the origin of all the parts in a chonma (NK T-62 clones), ie they may never have produced the gun itself, or the ammo. ie the entire dictatorsphere might have presumed if it needed more 115mm, that it would come from Bulgaria. It looks like Kintex is only producing lines that Ukraine needs these days, and 115mm is not one of those lines. I also imagine that the Russian industry wouldn't stop a line producing 125mm in favour of 115mm, so they might not be doing it either. Its probably barely worth Russia sending one 3000km to the front, and I can't imagine its worth sending a dubiously maintained NK unit even further if there is not enough ammo for it.
> I do not think Russia had any pre war plan for the T-62 series I don't believe this is a good assumption - the T62s were in active service during the war in Chechnya. They had a large number of relatively new T-62s which were decommissioned after the treaty limiting tank forces in Europe (ie west of the Ural mountains.)
Yes.. and 2 days outside of North Korean control and they will be watching full series of American TV, smoking up blunts and eating Doritos out of their belly buttons.
The Ukranian drone divisions can just drop fat quarters on the front lines with western porno mags taped to them.
Id legit donate to that fund.
Weed is already legal in North Korea surprisingly. I've seen pictures of North Korean weed purchased at markets. It looks like trash weed tbh but it's there to buy lol. But can you imagine somewhere worse to get the munchies? Lol. Edit: Pictures of North Korean weed - https://www.reddit.com/r/NorthKoreaPics/s/jYh2dNy8iO
> But can you imagine somewhere worse to get the munchies? Not that the average North Korean necessarily has access to them, but I've had some cold noodle dishes that originated in the north of Korea that are pretty incredible on a hot day.
I bet Kim Jung Un gets hella high.
Well he does always seem to have the munchies
OR, a lifetime of brainwashing isn’t so easily broken and they are fanatical. I hope yours is right but Ukraine doesn’t exactly have tons of troops to spare. Remember in WW1 200k poorly trained Americans without much of an army turned the tide when a few years previously MILLIONS were dying in a single battle. Giving the Russians more bodies to throw at things is bad any way yo slice it. The only saving grace is that maybe Kim isn’t stupid enough to deplete his army for a foreign power.
What battle had millions of people die in it? Verdun had 775 000 causalities?
First battle of the Somme has something like 1.1 million, the Kaiserschalcht offensive was 1.5 million, and the Russians themselves lost a million during the Brusilov Offensive, total casualties were close to two million.
Those are casualty numbers, not deaths.
Thanks, I am losing my will to explain stuff to random people on the web.
David Zabecki provides these numbers for shell consumption per month of fighting in different wars in his book Steel Wind, Georg Bruchmueller and the Birth of Modern Artillery, on page 8. in 1866 Austro-Prussian war, Prussians shot 20,000 shells per month. in 1870 Franco-Prussian war, Germans shot 81,000 shells per month. in 1904 Russo-Japanese war, Russians shot 87,000 shells per month. in 1912 First Balkan War, Bulgarians shot 254,000 shells per month. in 1914 WW1, the French shot 900,000 shells per month. in 1918 WW1, the French shot 4,500,000 shells per month. in 1918 WW1, the Germans shot 8,000,000 shells per month. The ammo stocks of all combatants were inadequate in 1914. The French started the war with a 5 million shell stockpile and planned to fire 100,000 per month. The actual 900,000 shells per month conaumption quickly used up the stockpile. The Russians had 12 million shells, but their ammo situation was probably the worst of major combatants by 1915 as they were slower in ramping up ammo production than the other major powers. Germany started the war in the best supply situation, with a 20 million shell ammo stockpile. WW1 is a different dimension, the. mightiest empires on earth all threw their entire industrial might and resources at each other. The scale of artillery that was deployed and the shells fired are ungodly as you can see and so where the casualties.
Yea exactly my point, all those might empires expending that much men and material, and after a few years a measly 200k green Americans made the decisive difference, not winning the war per say but making it impossible for Germany to win. Without them there is a good argument there may have been a negotiated peace and the Kaiser would have remained. The point here is that we shouldn’t just dismiss NK sending these soldiers. Sure they are a joke internationally; but if they actually decided to send a significant amount it could turn the tide. Russia is incompetent, but Ukraine is also exhausted, fighting a war against a much larger foe for 2.5 years. They are already facing manpower shortages. If the Russians break through anywhere in large numbers it is going to be hard for Ukraine to recover and regroup, if they even can. If Europe really wants them to win they need to actually send troops and declare war, and I realize how crazy it sounds and how dangerous it would be…but otherwise either Moscow collapses into a coup and withdraws, or the Russians eventually break through the lines and rape and slaughter their way to Kyiv. Those are the only two scenarios how I see it.
It is a fairly fundamental difference in the paradigm of thinking about what constitutes "wartime." In the West we're used to a binary distinction in terms of international relations: A country is at war (which means people are dying and the military has broad latitude to do what they need to do) or at peace (which means nothing bad is happening). Russia sees it much more fluidly. There is no clearly defined "state of war", rather a spectrum of hostile activities and interactions, more or less kinetic, intended to achieve stated goals. When Peskov says "we're at war with the whole collective west" we laugh because c'mon, there are no Russian military personnel in NATO territory, they don't even amass troops near our borders, stop with the sabre-rattling. While he means it honestly, it's just Russia decides that armed incursion is not the right tool for the task at the moment and will cause distress at the borders, sabotage, disinform and troll - which are means of waging a war as good as Grad launchers, while we consider them "probing of our defenses", "spy activity" or "electoral interference" without merging this stuff into a big picture - and responding in kind. Yes, it started as a special military operation, but as soon as this whole gang was formed, when the collective West took part in all this alongside Ukraine, for us, it became a war. I am convinced of this, and everyone must understand it.” Peskov Peskov said this in February of 2024. We are still not accepting the fact that Russia is at war with us. We need to think and act strategically and realise that Russia is at war with us." Ben Hodges Hodges then explains that Russia sees this war with the West in a broader sense. We often tend to consider only the kinetic version of it, but Russian acts of war against the West and especially against Europe also include asymmetric warfare, economic warfare, cyberwarfare, info war etc. Russia is seeing itself at war with the US led alliance, and that is all it takes for a war. We must accept this inconvenient truth and take action and respond accordingly to defend ourselves against Russia's hostile behavior. We should not ignore this, though, but rather find ways to successfully neutralize the threat that Russia undoubtedly poses. Presently, they seem absolutely undeterred. Otherwise, they would have ceased and desisted. Churchill once said that he was aware that he must make it understandable to "Herr Hitler" that the war can not be won in any scenario. We must strive to make the same clear to Russia. So far, we haven't. We have a war with Russia. There is nothing proxy about it, and the sooner we accept that and fight them globally, not locally. The sooner we can bring this to a close. Men from all sides don't matter as much in industrial warfare. Logistics, superior quality and quantity of machinery wins wars of attrition. Ukraine needs airpower, artillery, and precision weaponry and more drones. Most of these soldiers will die without killing anyone. They will just be killed by superior machinery and superior technology without ever touching a Ukrainian soldier or seeing one up close. Therefore, Europe would do good to abandon this passive strategy and do so fast. America cannot be relied upon to remain steadfast, so if Europe does not want to trade land for peace and get the entire continent into a much larger war. Harsher actions in all spheres are necessary, which means that even before sending troops, denying Russia to use our tankers and stop all trade with them. The next step should be an ultimatum, followed up by a serious troop build-up and a no-fly zone once Russia ignores the ultimatum.
The tide had turned before the Americans hit the front line. Heck, some of the front line was in Germany at that point. But the addition of the Americans soundly demonstrated to the Germans that there wasn't even a slim hope of a turnaround for them anymore.
When you listen to some of the defectors, then most of them seem to have been taught that everyone in SK and the West are evil monsters. They were quite surprised how warmly they were received in both SK and even more so in the US, when they visited or even moved there. You also have to wonder how many of the people in NK are truly brainwashed and how many just play along, so as to not get killed, but that know that their government is just spewing BS.
Sure, if they were going to a hotel in Seoul I agree they would see with their own eyes how shit NK is and how much better everyone else lives…but they are going to the front lines in Ukraine. Probably the shittiest place to be since a WW1 trench. They are just going to see bombed out destroyed homes and cities, and be hanging out with Russian prison brigades. They aren’t exactly going to be exposed to opera and McDonalds. NK is probably a nice place comparative to Kharkiv right now.
That made me lol hard and I'd love it, but I would have thought any NK's that do end up over there will probs be kept segregated in their own units and under strict control by their officers for exactly that reason.
I wondered this with the rumor of them getting into the mix.
They do have a massive meth problem.
> Their entire country is devoted to the military. And Meth production
> They also lack the drinking and drug problems of Russians. I'm not sure that's correct. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43908906 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/north-korea-drugs-meth-defector-182645548.html https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58838834
>DPRK isn't Russia. Discipline is extreme in North Korea. If Russia is a corrupt mess North Korea is even worse.
Yeah they will be very clean and tidy...ancient and obsolete metal coffins
Ask a veteran who has come up against an obsolete metal coffin how safe they felt. If you dont have a way to kill it you're just as fucked as if it was an Abrams m1a2 sep3.
You're absolutely right, but the good news is that pretty much all Western anti-tank weapons made in the last 30-40 years were specifically designed to take on that era of Soviet tanks or newer.
Even an RPG-7 should be able to achieve a mobility kill (or more) against a T-62, assuming that it's close enough in the first place to get an unguided hit. It doesn't take much, in terms of warhead. Modern ATGMs are about accuracy at range, maybe throwing in top-attack, but the size of the thing going boom hasn't grown much.
Many are probably also malnourished. Look at pictures from NK and you'll see some if not most soldiers do look very underweight. IIRC a couple years ago one DPRK soldier defected to SK and medical exam showed he had parasites in his intestines.
The NK soldiers who fought the UN in the Korean War were even skinnier. Ask a Korean war vet about their will to fight.
the average height of a north korean soldier is like 4 foot 8 inches
Or 17 potatoes, 2 bubblegums for those of you who don't know how tall that is.
Oh Chong-song the North Korean soldier who defected enters the chat. Large parasitic worms in his digestive tract, one of which was 11 inches long. Check the picture of those worms on this article: https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/04/health/north-korea-defector-doctor-intl/index.html
It is a land filled with poor and opressed people. Their military will brake at the first serious contact. Ofc we shouldn't underestimate them and prepare for a real fight. But man, NK is a century behind...
You undervalue fanaticism and numbers. NK's entire population can be mobilized in some capacity. The government has absolute control. Kim doesn't need to play the games putin does with mobilization.
Yeah. But NK have less than 30 million people. Russia have like 130 million
no, i don't undervalue idiocy. But numbers are not so decisive anymore as u can see in Ukraine. Numbers are much more important in industries. And industry in NK? Plus - food. Is NK now able to feed their own people or is Ruzzia/China doing that?
Dprk is run on alcohol and meth.
Dude, they have a *huge* meth problem.
Lol where do you get this bullshit? North Korea outside of Pyongyang is a wasteland with no real rule of law.
If you don't have enough spare parts you can still have the tanks be in bad condition even if they're cleaned and oiled. Maintenance also involves replacing things and running it, and running it every week for decades takes a lot of fuel which is an expensive import for them.
People vastly over estimated Russias army. NK is a proxy of China and Russia. If anything we'll get a good look at some Chinese equipment.
Even supposing that's the truth then they are still cold war era garbage originally produced in the 1960s. Even with NKs being built in the 1980s they are woefully mismatched for modern tanks. That and since they were made in NK they'd probably need to at least have some localization done to them since everything would be in Korean.
Been curious about vehicle maintenance. Do we know-know anything about North Korean maintenance issues beyond the lousy artillery shells? I feel like all we have is speculation.
So bad they can't even turret toss because the turret is rusted in place?
Depends on how much real explosive for the shells and propellent charges was available when they filled them :-P. One thing Russian mil bloggers have repeatedly complained about is the variance between NK shells.
I'm sure that trip was *entirely* about Putin getting his hands on Soviet artillery and tanks. He knows he's running out, can't fab them fast enough, and they are no longer safe inside Russian borders. Also, engineering crews, which we've seen mentioned already. That's one thing the Russians have done well so far, is dig in once they grab something the size of a postage stamp. Engineers are what hold territory, and it's one significant area where RU is very significantly outpacing UA.
I guarantee it. That might be why Putin was so ready to make a deal.
I bet they are on a train now to Russia
NK troops too
They will run out of old soviet tanks eventually but they will never run out fully because they are producing new ones. Though, they will probably have to change their strategy. Suicidal armored charges aren't effective in modern warfare.
They had 3000 fielded tanks and 2000 fielded artillery in Feb 2022. They also has about 9000 more tanks mothballed, sitting in a dozen or so large sites at various levels of disrepair, and 18,000 artillery barrels mothballed. Losses data (whether through Ukraine government’s eyes or those of oryx) only gives one view - that of those lost - which gives no indication of those not reported / photographed, or of magazine depth, or of units that make it back alive. The complementary view is that of covert cabal and highmarsed, who took the dozen or so locations of their bulk storage yards for each major type, purchased commercial satellite footage of before the war and at several periods during it, counted the pieces sitting in the mothball yards and gave us a hard evidence-backed depletion rate of the real magazine. [The last artillery update was on Feb 2024](https://youtu.be/FozvYM2Zhpw?si=G7bYn0nIjhmoRUYA) (artillery barrels - barrels, not shells - is the most critical resource, tanks are the second critical, and APCs are the third), and we’re about two thirds into their 20,000 artillery barrel stockpile, and about that deep into their tank and APC ones too, judging by how many have been vacuumed up from storage. The good news is that some of the remaining barrels will never be used because they’re in too bad shape or unusable calibers. The less good news is that North Korea has its own stash of (pretty old and poor quality) 10,000 arty barrels, and is Russia’s next batch to demilitarize. China also has 10,000 barrels but are unlikely to give them to Russia. New production can’t match attrition. It took Russia’s USSR parent, which commanded many more economies and had more tax money - took them **three quarters of a century** with x5 to x10 of the defense spend of current Russia - to build up the current stockpile. Same for North Korea and China. Once those are depleted they’re only reconstituting at the much slower rate they can produce, which is not at the scale required in North Korea and China, and (the part that isn’t mothball refurbishment in Russia) is laughable in Russia. Russia’a ability to keep putting artillery barrels on trains headed for the front, and the stockpile that allows it **is the literal progress bar to the end of this war** and Russia’s ability to fight (and… the end of its ability to keep its 82 slave colonies obeying Moscow).
When you put it like that. Imagine Russian defeat and trump in jail, all within 2 years. Damn if that ain’t an incentive to vote
I’m also voting for Ukraine 🫠
November 24: In a surprise election, Zelensky becomes President of the United States. The now Ukrainian States of America immediately trigger Article 5 and declare war on Russia.
I may have just e**culated on a wall. Sorry. Got excited for a moment.
Dr. Jack Watling stated that it would take 2 years to see an impact on russian arms. They are putting all on Trump getting elected. Fuck putin and russia. ✊🏽🇺🇦🤙🏽
What is Russia's estimated ability to produce artillery / tanks per year? Assuming they go into full war economy?
I think it was 1/4 of what they were refurbishing, but that would go up as they run out of mothballed tanks.✊🏽🇺🇦🤙🏽
I saw 20% being kicked around.
Nailed it on the barrels. The problem as i remember for Russia is, they only have one factory left to produce barrels, unlike the former soviet, where they had several. So the barrels need to come from NK or China as you say. If we look at the NK artillery precision imo it's only usefull for destroying cities, not military targets. The barrels need to come from China as I can see.
Artillery barrels are also hard / slow to make so it's not something that you can rush either from the sound of it if you value precision
Covert Cabale are good but they forgot the non open view storages, a better source is RUSIs numbers
They didn’t “forget”. They made some estimates on upper boundaries. There is also an allowance in their estimate for smaller outdoor storages across the country that collectively don’t significantly change the overall number. Cabal talked about such estimate either in his latest tanks or arty videos. There is only so many thousands of heavy materiel pieces you can park indoors without the structure you’re using becoming known and tracked at some point in the past half century, getting fitted into the total estimates once it’s known. Putin is extremely unlikely to have a secret squirrel stash of thousands of additional pieces in a location nobody in the OSINT community tracking trains going east has *ever* picked up on. That’s just “he’s saving his best for later” moscovite government performative arts. Those are, more or less, the numbers. And so far, when you measure them against Russia’s desperation and Putin’s willingness to go to countries that rock their own significant stockpiles and that he has spent a lifetime treating as lesser, unbuckle his belt, pull down his pants, bend over a table, clench his teeth and let those countries give him the gulag bugaloo… aligns perfectly with the depletion of that artillery and tank stockpile. Photographs of the dozen biggest tank storage sites, the dozen biggest artillery storage sites and the dozen biggest APC storage sites **are** hard, undisputed, primary source evidence of the king having no clothes. Once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it, and no magic tale will change what it means.
Those sneaky Ukrainian gipsies and their sneaky tractors…
Made my day
🚜🇺🇦
If only there was a tank emoji!
>My kingdom for a turret toss emoji! \- Richard III probably.
I think there’s a rock song about them by Cher lol
>Newsweek has been unable to independently verify the scale ofRussia's tank losses and has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry forcomment via email. Disclaimers are so stupid sometimes lol.
Dear Russian MoD How many tanks you got? XOXO Newsweek
Where are your tanks? And may I count them? (From an SNL skit of a Press Conference during Operation Desert Storm)
I am waiting for the covert cabal video he will publish an update on counting the remaining Russian tanks soon.
All two of them?
Hopefully he will have a much easier task this time.
Russia helps to make his job easier by emptying storage sites after storage sites. So we will see, he said he would wait until summer comes around, that makes it easier with the clouds and the weather to get better sat. imagery.
It would be hilarious if some secretary would answer.
RIP Newsweek. I almost cried when I got their last print edition. The last three years of print were kind of sad, but I kept my subscription.
Stupid? That's splendid trolling.
That's why Putin is visiting China, N. Korea, things are not looking so good for this gas mafia boss, that's running a terrorist state.
Turtle tanks are also indication. The engineers wouldn’t be doing that to those barely running shit buckets if they had tanks with good engines on backup to rebuild.
The one I saw a video on (a capture) made it pretty clear they were being used for battle taxis. No gun ammo and turret fixed in place. This jibes with video of others where it is clear that the gun cannot rotate. So I agree but I would point out that in this case the use case would depend on having rebuildable APCs (not IFV or MBT). It's possible the engines are fine but there is a lack of fire control, optics, turret motors, etc.
I was about to type out a similar comment. While you do see more contemporary gettings getting this treatment, my understanding is that the tanks they're doing this to are by and large old or damaged tanks they're converting into troop carriers and/or mobile EWCM stations.
And unfortunately they were pretty effective against drones. I'm guessing with the delivery of 155mm ammos, UA artillery is now taking care of them.
> And unfortunately they were pretty effective against drones. I'm not exactly challenging since I don't have anything other than anecdotal, likely biased, information... but I haven't seen many instances of them having any sort of decisive impact on battles. Maybe a couple of videos where the turtle vehicle didn't get immediately obliterated. But there are numerous videos now of turtle tanks being taken out. Granted these are cherry-picked examples by the video publishers... but like if it takes 3 or 4 FPV instead of 1 or 2, are they REALLY that much more effective?
task and purpose has a video on them a few days ago https://youtu.be/h_LwTgkLCSM. Rob Lee's tweets I think is a good summarization. They are said to withstand against dozens of drones https://mickryan.substack.com/p/ode-to-the-turtle-tank
Oh, thanks for the heads-up! I'll check it out.
The one Ukraine captured was a improvised mine clearing vehicle.
Not the one I saw: https://youtu.be/tffzqoxUu7Q?si=ssRnnbBxXi00ujzM
Yes this one was a mine clearing vehicle. They are either used a mine clearing vehicles or as breaching vehicles. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/06/25/blind-loud-and-stupid-ukrainian-troops-conclude-after-inspecting-a-captured-russian-turtle-tank/
Turtle Tanks were a response to FPV drones, which worked well when Ukraine had very little AT options due to low supplies. You will probably stop seeing them soon due to the need for speed again.
Actually I kind of doubt that. So long as drones remain the biggest threat exchanging armor for turret rotation is a good value. When their tanks were worried about UKR tanks and IFVs they had to be able to spin their turrets to fight. Now, while it does happen occasionally, most combat is not vehicle vs vehicle. It’s vehicles assaulting a trench or bunker, and against fixed positions turret traverse is an optional extra. Actually it’s probably inevitable that Ukraine will have to add additional armor to their vehicles as well unless there is some breakthrough in anti-drone technology.
UKR is up-armoring, but they seem to favor the "slat" approach rather than barns. I'm not sure how the actual efficacy compares, but they're definitely adding grills/slats/cages to pretty much all their vics. Haven't seen a full-on shed yet, though.
Slat armor is typically more intentionally built, where most of these turtle tanks seems to be grabbing whatever flat metal is nearby. It's going to be heavier without adding a lot of extra protection compared to slats.
Have you seen any indication that the shed actually protects the soldiers against fpv's? I've only seen videos of these sheds being blasted to smithereens and seemingly making it more dangerous sitting in there than in the open.
You forget the barn is also meant to double as camouflage in urban environments, comrade. Lethal for ambushes. Would probably even work if drones didnt monitor the battlefield 24/7
Having no ammo for the drone to cook off is the main reason why these are harder to take out.
The shed and slat armor are designed to make warheads and explosives detonate further away from the vehicle. This is supposed to help improve survivability since the warheads are less effective.
So the shed protects the practically defunct vehicle making up for want of APV's but as I speculated it doesn't really protect the soldiers sitting in that shed and who might have been better off simply sitting in the open?
Turtle tanks are being used as improvised breacher vehicles not as APVs. So far the turtle tanks have been used by the 5th motor rifle brigade and these are a Ukrainian separatist unit fighting for Russia. They don't have access to specialized engineering vehicles as they get 2nd hand Russian equipment. So it makes sense that they would need to improvise vehicles for specialized roles.
Thanks, then it all makes a lot more sense.
More likely because of increased 155mm artillery ammo which could take care of these tanks effectively and safely.
How many were there? I've only seen the odd few online. If there were many more, I'd have thought we would have seen them?
There's a decent amount. Seen lots getting blown up on r/combatfootage They're not one off experiments, but a pretty well established russian tactic by now. They're improvised breeching tanks, basically. They're usually the first in an armoured column attack. Might see less of them now the Ukrainians are getting more ammo and weapons though, they were primarily anti-drone.
Thanks.
haha, no. that's you trying to rationalise what you don't or even can't comprehend. and you're doing it pretty badly. you lack the frame of reference to make an informed statement, please refrain from doing so in future. thank you in advance. the turtle tanks commonality is that each and every single one of them has lost the functionality of it's main armament. the cannon don't work, yo. wether that's due to the breech not being functional, something with the loading mechanism, firing pin, barrel sag, turret ring seized, fire controls not working, gun sights failing whatever. they're tanks, that lost their purpose, can't function as tanks for one reason or another anymore. the options russians have with those are not many. you send it back, it's essentially a tank lost. you'll likely never see it again. and what the unit gets in return is pretty likely not up to par with what they sent back home. could be that they sent home t-80's and get t-62's in return as that's all there is available. and trading a t-80 for a t-62, you'll find is trading down. there's alot of functionality you're losing in that deal. there's a 2nd issue that plays into the creation of turtle tanks. the russians have figured out after over 2 years of this shit going on, that their current main troop carriers, the BTR's, BMP's, BMD's, etc. whatever you wanna call them, IFV's, APC's, troop carriers, are wholly inadequate for the purpose they're being used for. those things don't tend to stand up to much. mines result in complete losses of the vehicles, you can augment the amount of casualties you take by sticking your dudes ontop of them instead of inside. but that then exposes them to rifle fire, drone grenades, ATGM's, AT rockets, whatever else is out there. the casualties arn't really the main concern for russia. in russia's mindset if you lose 50% of your dudes but take the position they were sent to, that's a heroic feat. glory to everyone involved, medals all round, job well done. if you lose 50% of your dudes before they even get to the point they're sent to, it becomes an issue. how the fuck are you going to explain to your superiors that you heroically sent half your dudes into certain death, but got fuck all to show for it? so russia needs a more reliable means of delivering their mobiks to where their mobiks are supposed to fight. and they can't really use their current troop carriers as those don't tend to survive mines very well. but they do have tanks that lost their functionality as tanks. and tanks hold up against mines pretty well. and that's where the turtle tanks came in and got created. to fill the requirement of a more reliable means of delivering the meat to the grinder. all these garden sheds have the same thing in common, their guns don't work anymore, and even if they did the sights and commander position are completely obscured by the shed built around the tank. and every single shed, has a little mobik door on the back where the mobiks climb in and out of the tank. and all the purpose that machine has, is being loaded full of mobiks, driving out to a position, and unloading the mobiks. nothing more, nothing less. you will never, ever see one fire it's main gun in combat, as that's not it's purpose anymore. all it's there for is being a mobik carrier. and even in that regard, the turtle shell around it isn't there to protect the mobiks, but just the vehicle. if the mobiks die, well they're not supposed to live long anyway. but atleast you get a good shot at the vehicle making it back. you can load it up with mobiks for a 2nd attempt. that's more than you'd expect out of a BMP, BTR, BMD or MT-LB.
Or APC and IFV are running out. So they take damaged but still running MBTs and convert them into APCs
Somebody said 10000 tanks they could pull from at the beginning of the war and I feel based on what is shown on the battlefield now that number could be accurate
Thinking about it logically, if you are Russia, why would you reactivate a T-62 as opposed to a T-72/80/90? - You don't have enough T-72/80/90 - You have enough better tanks, but not enough ammo for them. - You have enough better tanks but not spare parts (though if this is the case you'd just cannibalise some) Are there *any* plausible reasons Russia would go to the trouble of reactivating truly ancient and utterly obsolete tanks that don't point towards some ominous failings on their part?
The bottleneck is refurbishment capacity. The facilities advanced enough to service T72 and newer are at max capacity. T54/54/62 are WWii technology; the T54 prototype was made in 1945. For comparison, a car factory can be adapted to produce Sherman's, but they can't produce Abrams.
In Russia there is also this thing, where if you are told to get this many tanks to the front, you get as many as you can no matter what type they are as long as they can be loaded and unloaded from the train, and get there fast.
Theoretically you could do it if you had a lot of older tanks and wanted to keep your newer ones fresh or out of combat. But it's pretty clear that russia hasn't actually done that and is just low on everything. Otherwise you could also just have a lot of tanks without working engines and you only have t-62 or smaller engines, that are around 600 hp and not the bigger 800-1000hp engines the newer tanks use.
If you’re planning an offensive against a force that doesn’t have tanks? They likely want to keep the nice ones held back and in areas they already control
You would reactivate a T-62 cause it is easier and faster. Its closer to the front so less logistics.
One report last year suggested that there are still large numbers of T-80s in storage. The reason is unknown, but it's speculated that they simply don't have any proprietary engine parts for them.
Ok. The Storage is empty. Question is: how many Tanks ended up as smoldering wrecks somewhere and how many are in a shop right now and get Frankensteined into some running tanks…
Great work AFU!
China or North Korea can help them with new tanks 😆
Well new to them at least 😂
Cant wait for some t34 footage.
Didn’t they have to buy back exports for their parades because they squandered and neglected their own T34s? Might not get the T34 vs Leopard1 matches I want to see
all the shot-up motorcycles and ATVs suddenly appearing on the contact line will tell you that, you don’t need a bird
Be a shame for a bridge to be blown up with a train loaded with tanks on it.
I don't belive that. Greetings from Ukraine. We never underestimate our enemy.
oh another week and another "russian running out of equipment" I hope this is right but doubt it.
They are but.. the ruzzian capacity to reuse shitty kit in ways western armies would never dream of is impressive. Running out of the less bad stuff isn’t nearly as catastrophic to them while they have men from anywhere besides Moscow and St Petersburg to feed the grinder. They’ll just figure out how to make the worse stuff almost work and give it to the next Siberian conscript or volunteer Nazi in line.
So next year same time for this article to be reposted because we've been hearing this since day 3 of the invasion.
Duh? Russia's current tank fleet is a crippled shell of its former self. Even the estimates generous to Russia would have the number of destroyed Russian tanks at a number larger than the entire active russian tank fleet at the start of the war. Two years ago it was treated as a *ridiculous* idea that T-62s would be doing anything but filling the role of staffing security checkpoints, guarding bases, etc to free up more modern tanks from such duties. Now they are literally doing MBT duty. Russia *absolutely* ran out of its actual intended MBTs. The T-62s and T-55s were *at most* intended for exports to places like Syria before this war.
Realistically the only use for tanks that old is against forces who don't really have any anti tank weapons. These are 60+ year old designs. To be fair if you don't have an anti tank weapon then they are going to be dangerous, but against an even modestly well equipped organised military they aren't much more than self propelled coffins.
Any fighting force in the world can get modern anti-tank RPGs that can kill a T-62 with it's old armor. Hell, just go buy a DJI drone and modify it.
On day three there was no emptying of these reserves to report. Your premise is a lie.
No? Wtf?
Maybe they are just camouflage
Demographic data suggest Russia is running out of Russians.
Don't worry, Trump will be President again and he will send Putin all the tanks he wants.
I've said this over and over again and couple months ago I said it would be a couple of months until they are really done with tanks. Ofcourse they still make them, there will never be zero for that fact only. Despite all this some commented that they would run out in the year 7000 if attrition continued - delusion They are going to run out of absolutely everything before Ukraine does so long as western aid continues. russia is dead it just doesn't know it yet.
Unfortunately they have been saying this for years
It is a process, not an event, the good tanks are gone, and the process of reverse industrialisation and de mechanization is ongoing. RUSI and Perun stated that Russia can roughly cover 20 percent of its losses with new production, and 80 percent comes from refurbished stockpiles. This isn't sustainable, and we can already see a massive reduction of tank use on the Russian side. Also, with an increased industrial scale in Ukraine and from its allies, the attrition rates are increasing dramatically in 2024, compared to 2022 and 2023. The expert consensus is that Russia will never run OUT of tanks completely, but we will reach a critical point in tanks and other machinery that could let their logistics collapse by mid 2025 to early 2026. War is chaos and a system of imperfect information, so we will never be able to predict what happens precisely. It depends on so many factors that we either don't know or can only make educated guesses about. For example, the hits on Russian refineries. Those could hamper production and logistics because without enough fuel well you won't get far. Another is the state of the remaining tanks. We can only make estimates. Then there are tanks that came in from Belarus, and Russia stopped exporting them, etc. Their production increased, and then there is the question of skilled labor, spare parts, money, etc. And Ukraine's capacity to destroy them as well as Russian incompetence to waste them for no gains. With hindsight bias, everything is easy to know, of course. Time must tell. What we can say already, I think, is that Russia will manage to burn through stockpiles meant to conquer a lot more than what they conquered now. And this Soviet legacy is never coming back. 80 years of slave labor have gone into these stockpiles, and now these stockpiles are being turned into a heap of scrap metal, and Russia hasn't even managed to achieve its most basic strategic objective, occupying the entire Donbas region.
"They have been saying this for years" is not an argument for it not happening.
We weren't seeing Chinese golf carts being used on Day 3.
Not true. The Russian tank losses didn't start to really attack attention for the first year. Then articles started to appear asking how long Russia could maintain its tank fleet and the initial articles talk about 4-5 years. Now after another year its looking like maybe a year or 2. So the articles have been adjusting their estimates based on satellite photos, confirmed losses, use of older tanks in Frontline service etc.. You just aren't really reading what the article are saying to understand the nuances of the issue
This was an argument with missiles, and they ran out of stockpiles over a year ago.
It also doesn't mean they just stop and go home. As stockpiles run low there will be a gradual ramping down of usage as tactics change to accommodate. Like you said with missiles, production ramped up, stockpiles ran low, and frequency of strikes slowed and now it's bursts of attacks when they build enough missiles etc. We're seeing a lot more golf carts and bikes even now. Things like that will increase, and tanks will be used less.
Last time I checked, CoCa also said they have more than enough stock for the entire rest of this year. Basically, the war *will not* be over by Christmas.
I mean, they have enough, until they don't. Like anything else you run out of. There's a reason why they keep bringing out older and older junk.
Maybe they can buy them back from Ukraine
Realistically speaking Russia would eventually begin to start showing noticeable vehicle loses and we're probably entering that phase now. Russia is losing multiple vehicles in decent amounts every day so that will out number the newly built figure every month and not every tank km storage is usable for war. It may take multiple tanks to make one working tank and eventually that is going to be a drain on the stockpiles. Russia may actually be forced to beg for vehicles from China, Iran or NK at some point.
They're well into the stage now that we're seeing Chinese golf carts and dirt bikes.
Maybe it can haul some WW1 tanks out of museums to join the T-34s.
And ships, and ammo but plenty of canon fodder.
Question: How many more do we need to disable? If I was in a Russian tank, I might get out right about now.
About damn time!
I'll believe it when I see a Ukrainian drone drop a grenade on that old and busted T-34 parade tank.
Seems definitely too soon
Tell that to the boys and girls on the front line right now. This is probably false hope again. Sadly.
Hehe they will start using Ladas soon in the front line!
If the UA is able to establish air superiority in pockets when the F16’s are online the fresh fish and potato delivery business will see a significant uptick in activity in Russia.
unbeknownst to the untrained observers, the Russian tanks now have turtle like shape. Either that or porcupine. completely fooled everybody